Football Manager 2020

[Lineker]

1 minute ago, stokeriño said:

Having been out of the loop with FM for a few years, I have to ask: Is controlling your team's Training something that normal people engage with yet, or is it still a mystical art reserved only for the criminally insane?

I let the assistant do it - unless they're not training the squad in penalties right before a cup final... even that's automatic now I think though.

[The Lusophone]

I only change schedules after a fixture change gets announced, cos sometimes the AI doesn't fix it - and I take control of all individual training myself.

[FLiam]

I’m the same. Squad training I leave to the assistant whereas individual I am all over otherwise the assistant will be assigning them the wrong position or role to what I actually want them playing. 

[METALMAN]

Training is boring tbf. Why hire coaches if you have to do their job for them? : /

[mattu29]

glad im not the only one who leaves training to the assistant lol

[Lineker]

There will also obviously be the full updated patch towards the end of February with transfer window changes also implemented.

[Naitch]

My screen fits CM01/02, FM05, and FM09 to allow for simultaneous play. My missus has titled it "the saddest thing I've ever seen you do".

I reckon I could get two more of the older CM games going in the space underneath...

[stokeriño]

6 minutes ago, Naitch said:

My missus has titled it "the saddest thing I've ever seen you do".

I presume that "seen" is the key word in this sentence.

[RazorsEdge]

13 minutes ago, Naitch said:

My screen fits CM01/02, FM05, and FM09 to allow for simultaneous play. My missus has titled it "the saddest thing I've ever seen you do".

I reckon I could get two more of the older CM games going in the space underneath...

I was split-screening FM19 and FM20 when 20 was in Beta but this is next level.

[Gazz]

Rookie numbers.

And if you're not doing your team's training, can you even call yourself a football manager?

[Arjen Robben]

My Tottenham squad in this network save I've been playing with a few people, just after the January window of the first season has closed, is what can only be described as a nonsense.

Everyone fuming at me for spending £363m 

[RazorsEdge]

4 hours ago, Arjen Robben said:

My Tottenham squad in this network save I've been playing with a few people, just after the January window of the first season has closed, is what can only be described as a nonsense.

Everyone fuming at me for spending £363m 

How'd you end up with that much to spend? Cashed in on Eriksen & Alderweireld for how much? Dias always seems to go to a lower PL team like Sheffield United in my games but he looks quality enough for a top team to me.

[Arjen Robben]

Yeah, sold Eriksen for £70m to PSG and Alderweireld for his £25m release fee. Sold Wanyama to Southampton for £8m (cut price cause there's a human player managing Southampton, mates rates innit), sold Sissoko to Beijing Guoan for £22m and Lucas Moura to Milan for £30m in January.

Also asked the board to get me Ruben Dias (I think) and Alex Grimaldo and they just... did? Although Grimaldo also kinda screwed me over cause I had a £20m deal to sign Camavinga agreed and was just waiting to confirm it, but asking the board to sign Grimaldo for me made me lose that money from my transfer budget so I couldn’t complete it, and I couldn’t sell anyone on deadline day to raise the money for it either. Annoyingly, nobody wanted cut price Lamela or Ben Davies.

Not entirely true actually, Shanghai SIPG bid £14m for Ben Davies which would have covered the up front £12m for Camavinga, but he rejected them. Cunt. Unregistered him from the Champions League squad out of pure spite.

Dunno why I feel so much more carefree throwing crazy money about on network games vs. my own offline games. Probably cause I always expect it to just fizzle out I guess.

Have actually pretty much signed what would be a really good starting lineup in itself actually:

Semedo   Dias   Demiral  Grimaldo

                          Luis
               Aouar  Szoboszlai

Bernardeschi                 Maddison
                        Haaland

I’ve basically single-handedly bankrolled Benfica for the foreseeable future as well.

I hope none of those young lads are good prospects that I've let go. I kept the ones that looked decent or better, like Skipp and Parrot obviously. My U23's are top of their U23 league as well so I hope I haven't just fucked them over  In my head I thought if I sell enough of the shitty ones it might accumulate somehow to fund Camavinga but er... yeah, not even fucking close.

Bit skewed...

The lad playing as Chelsea has just signed Roy Carroll. Who is 42. Which is actually younger than I thought tbh.

[RazorsEdge]

15 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

Not entirely true actually, Shanghai SIPG bid £14m for Ben Davies which would have covered the up front £12m for Camavinga, but he rejected them. Cunt. Unregistered him from the Champions League squad out of pure spite.

Glad I'm not the only one who does this 😂. That's some good wheeling and dealing. I can actually relate the the Roy Carroll thing. I generally try to make it so after my first season I have my first choice goalkeeper, a developing goalkeeper who's in the main squad but playing for the U23's and a HG veteran as a mentor and backup, who usually ends up being Scott Carson.

[Arjen Robben]

Do you ever see any noticeable benefit from doing that? I think I have that naturally on my Boro save with Darren Randolph and Aynsley Pears but I don't think I've noticed any particular benefit come from it. I miss the old one on one tutoring system FM used to have.

[RazorsEdge]

23 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

Do you ever see any noticeable benefit from doing that? I think I have that naturally on my Boro save with Darren Randolph and Aynsley Pears but I don't think I've noticed any particular benefit come from it. I miss the old one on one tutoring system FM used to have.

I miss the tutoring system as well. It feels like it works as long as you have the young player in your senior team but set to play for the U23's or U18's. I don't think it is as much of a benefit as the tutoring was but if you bring in someone like Carson, who generally starts training to be a goalkeeping coach straight away I think it makes a slight difference. I also don't really see too much difference in development when loaning a player out, in fact sometimes I am certain their development stalls if you do - even if they're playing in the first team.

As an example, I did a test where as Man Utd I loaned out Mason Greenwood and he played every game (I can't remember if it was a Championship or League 1 team) and his stats barely changed at all over a season. Then I used the same save data start (so Greenwood's PA would be the same) and kept him at the club and used him sparingly in cup matches, after the first season his stats had improved dramatically and as I moved into the second season he ended up (due to injury) being my first choice striker and won the golden boot.

[Baddar]

I remember reading that if you're at a club with Excellent/Very Good training facilities, a player will grow more just by staying there on the bench than if they go to a lesser team on loan. Can't speak for FM 2020 but that's been the case in the last few at least. 

[FLiam]

Yeah, it depends on training facilities a lot of the time and also how the team play etc. Which is why sometimes it’s better to keep hold of a younger player and play in the cups rather than go on loan for the sake of it.

[RazorsEdge]

That would explain things.

I'm playing as Newcastle and just before December the club's been taken over by an Estonian consortium led by the former Marketing Manager of Estonian club JK Tammeka Tartu. Not even kidding. He's then promptly let me know that they won't be investing anything into the club. Cheers, mate.

Transfers out:
Jack Colback to Stoke for £2.4M
Christian Atsu to Al-Ittihad for £2.8M
Javi Manquillo to Schalke for £4.2M
Henri Saivet to Al-Ahli for £3M
Yannick Toure to Leicester for £2M (rising to £6.75M)
Ki Sung-Yeung to Al-Hilal for £3.8M (rising to £4.9M)

Added only three players: Jorge Mere from Koln for £9.5M to help out in defense, Carles Alena on loan from Barca as backup to Shelvey, and 16 year-old Rochdale right wing-back Luke Matheson for £2.5M.

After a fairly shaky start to the season we now find ourselves in 3rd place after 13 games played. Joelinton has scored 8 goals in those games and has been immense. Florian Lejeune has just returned from injury but my defensive trio of Fabian Schar, Jamaal Lascelles and Jorge Mere have been good and I don't want to upset that so I may look to offload either Lejuene, Clark, Fernandez or Dummett in January.

Krafth and Yedlin have been fighting it out over the right wing-back position with neither really impressing so one will be leaving in January, hopefully, and Derby youngster Jayden Bogle will be coming in for £11M. This leaves me with £11M in the transfer budget and £122K p/w in the wage budget but I have to take into account signing Jetro Willems as taking up £7M of that.

Squad has gone through some changes. Saint-Maximin was trash early on until I told him to play better or be dropped which he responded to by netting a hat-trick against Watford. Almiron has been solid on the right. Central midfield pairing has shifted through Shelvey, Sean Longstaff, Alena, Hayden a bit but I've finally landed on Sean Longstaff (who scored a hat-trick against Southampton in a 6-1 win) and Alena as my midfield duo (Shelvey can fuck off, he's so terrible it isn't funny). Would love to bring Alena in permanently but probably not going to happen so might try to extend the loan.

Currently rocking this:-
GK - Martin Dubravka
DCR - Fabian Schar
DC - Jamaal Lascelles
DCL - Jorge Mere
WBR - DeAndre Yedlin
WBL - Jetro Willems
MCR - Carles Alena
MCL - Sean Longstaff
AMR - Allan Saint-Maximin
AML - Miguel Almiron
STC - Joelinton

I would like to go four at the back instead of wing-backs because they're so hard to come by but Newcastle have so many central defenders I feel like it is needed. Against bigger teams Saint-Maximin sits out for Hayden to move into DMC and Almiron goes AMC. Won 7 games in a row (6 PL, 1 Carabao Cup) so seem to have hit something with my tactics. Going to be a pain when it comes to rebuilding the squad because I likely need to sell Lascelles and Shelvey and selling both my captain and vice-captain is obviously going to be fun >_>

[Baddar]

Alena should walk into the Newcastle team if he's as good in the game as he is in real life.